There are a lot of great chefs in this area, but now one has a served up a big win in the popular cooking show Chopped Canada on the Food Network.
The program aired over the Thanksgiving weekend and featured Nghe Tran, who operates Ha's Restaurant in Sundridge.
Each episode of "Chopped Canada" challenges four professional chefs to turn boxes of mystery ingredients into a three-course meal in a race against the clock. Each course serves as its own round in the competition, and the chef with the least-successful dish -- as determined by a panel of judges -- is eliminated.
Nghe (Guy) Tran saw a posting for an online application for Chopped Canada on Facebook after a friend tagged him. After filling it out he was surprised to receive a call the next day.
"I was very nervous. They called for a half hour telephone interview."
That successful conversation led to an in-person video session in Toronto.
See the episode Dessert Dilema aired October 8, 2016 online and Chopped Canada Facebook page.
He thinks part of the reason he was picked is because the show likes to have a human interest angle.
In 1979 the family became refugees from South Vietnam and came over with very little.
"We were part of the 'boat people' so we left Vietnam on a very small boat with 300 people on it with a 25 per cent chance of survival."
The family beat the odds and came to Canada and were entrepreneurs. It became a story of hard work and perseverance.
"We just wanted a chance at a better life," Tran said. "We were in the refugee camp in Malaysia for six months and an opportunity came up to either go to Canada or Iceland. And the literal translation of Iceland to my parents was crazy, going to the land of ice, so they decided to go to Canada," he laughs.
As luck would have it, one of the sponsors operated the old Village Restaurant in Burk's Falls and that's where Tran's dad got his first job. The diner served the usual fare, but when the owner found out that the father could cook tasty Chinese food, it was quickly changed to a Chinese food restaurant.
"Shortly after that the restaurant was sold and my dad had a falling out with the new owners, so he decided to go off on his own and started a restaurant in Emsdale."
That was 1985. In two years it developed a huge following in the Sundridge area.
"There was overwhelming support from a lot of well-known families for us to go to Sundridge," says Tran, "and that's where the present restaurant stands."
Fast-forward to Chopped Canada. Tran breezed through the first two rounds of the show, but the final round became what he describes as "a roller coater ride" of emotions.
"I was extremely nervous. I had a game plan going in, and for the first two rounds it went exactly as I wanted it to, but in the third round I abandoned my plan to do ice cream.
"It kind of messed me up because abandoning your game plan is not the best, I wouldn't suggest it", he chuckles at the memory.
"On top of that, getting the two mystery ingredients, the already cooked egg and the buttermilk, threw me way off."
The tension began to rise with a prize of $10,000 on the table in the winner-takes-all competition.
"I just could not come up with a different plan. I thought that I'm creative enough to pull something out for the dessert round but when those two items came up it threw me for a loop."
Tran thought he had lost the round for sure.
So it came as a complete shock when he was proclaimed by the judges to be the winner.
"I was surprised. I was hoping I would win and thought I did well enough in the first two rounds to have a shot at it, but it wouldn't have surprised me if that dessert lost me the title. But I was extremely excited when I saw that it wasn't me being chopped because I know how close it was."
Every show has a grand prize winner, and Tran is hoping producers come up with a 'tournament of champions' show when they have enough winners.
"I'd love to be involved in that."
While the cash prize is great, Tran is also very happy with the publicity it has generated for his business.
"It has already elevated the public perception of our restaurant and I think of Chinese food in general and for me as a credible chef. There's marketing potential that comes out of all of this just because of all the exposure."
The show, shot in July last year, requires you to be not just a great chef, but a keeper of secrets, and Tran was sworn to secrecy.
"We've been holding on to this secret for quite a while. It was extremely hard for me as an adult but my three children also knew. So my three-year-old daughter knew the details and had to keep it a secret."
In celebration of his win, Tran is offering a free Canh Chua Vietnamese soup as a sampler (see our photo gallery) when you eat in the restaurant...but don't delay, it's for a limited time, then it will be 'chopped'.
